President Obama reacts after answering questions about the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya, during a joint news conference with Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (not pictured) in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday. Americans are not paying much attention to Benghazi news, according to a Pew survey.

However, that could change as Republican-led investigations into the administration’s actions roll on. There’s reason to believe the IRS scandal, in particular, could hurt Democrats at the polls in the 2014 midterms, according to New York Times polling guru Nate Silver.

As for Mr. Obama himself, right now his approval rating is about one point lower than it was a month ago, according to the RealClearPolitics rolling average of major polls. Some 48.6 percent of respondents say they approve of the way Obama is doing his job, while 46.1 percent disapprove.

In general, Americans are not paying much attention to Benghazi news, according to a separate Pew survey released Monday. Only 23 percent said they have followed Benghazi closely.

This does not necessarily mean they are shrugging off the whole Benghazi situation, however. Forty percent of respondents say the administration has generally been dishonest about providing information on the attack. Thirty-seven percent say the administration has been generally honest.

Interest in the Benghazi subject is split along partisan lines, with twice as many Republicans in the “closely following” camp as Democrats.

However, not much of the presidential approval/disapproval polling reflects the IRS story yet. That broke last Friday and has been growing in severity since.

Republicans might have good reason to believe that Obama will be more affected by news that the IRS used keywords such as “tea party” to search for groups to single out for special scrutiny – whether the action is directly tied to the White House or not.

Political scandals generally have much less long-term electoral effect than the press and Washington insiders suppose, Silver at the NYT notes.

But some have legs, and the IRS flap might be one of those.

The scandal is easy to describe, but hard to refute, Silver judges. It cuts against Obama’s claim that he is a president who is trying to reach out to the other political side. It’s also coming in a slow political news cycle.

The IRS story “has the potential to harm Democrats’ performance in next year’s midterm elections, partly by motivating a strong turnout from the Republican base,” writes Silver.